Charles Glenn

Charles L. Glenn is professor in the Department of Administration, Training and Policy Studies, and Fellow of the University Professors Program, at Boston University, where he teaches education history and policy. From 1970 to 1991 he was director of urban education and equity efforts for the Massachusetts Department of Education, including administration of over $500 million in state funds for magnet schools and desegregation, and initial responsibility for the nation’s first state bilingual education mandates.

Glenn is author of a number of studies in educational history and comparative policy, including The Myth of the Common School (1988, 2002), Choice of Schools in Six Nations (1989), Educational Freedom in Eastern Europe (1994, 1995), Educating Immigrant Children: Schools and Language Minorities in Twelve Nations (1996), and The Ambiguous Embrace: Government and Faith-based Schools and Social Agencies (Princeton University Press, 2000) as well as the article on school choice in the International Encyclopedia of Education (2nd edition) and several hundred articles, book chapters, and monographs. He has just published, with Professor Jan De Groof of Belgium, the first volume of Finding the Right Balance: Freedom, Autonomy and Accountability in Education (second volume discussion of legal and policy implications–will be published Fall 2002), a study of the arrangements in 26 countries for balancing educational freedom with common standards and accountability, pupil and teacher rights with the integrity of the school’s mission. He is currently writing The Long Tug-of-War: Schools between State and Civil Society, a history of schooling in the West.

Glenn is active in educational policy debates in the United States and Europe, is vice president of OIDEL (the Geneva-based international organization promoting educational freedom), a charter member of the European Association for Education Law and Policy, and has served as a consultant to the Russian and Chinese education authorities, and to states and major cities across the United States. He has served as an expert witness in federal court cases on school finance, desegregation, and bilingual education. Glenn’s BA and EdD degrees are from Harvard, and his PhD from Boston University.